long afloat on shipless oceans
by tco-deanirae
Summary: One word, one syllable, three letters, one vowel. This is how death comes and takes away what people love. This is what is left when nothing is left. Castiel once knew a man. Now he knows too much.


**I.**

His hands are shaking, but it's a good thing. The same with his voice, all notes uneven. His eyes are burning with hope, the whole room is so bright with it Castiel feels blind. And he can't help but greedily swallow the sight. He marvels at Dean's fearlessness.

"We're gonna do it," Dean says with excitement, eyes shining. It means everything. "We're having a camp, we're gonna be saving people," he adds, taking Cas's face in his trembling hands, shaking him into understanding. And God, Castiel understands. He believes. In Dean, in the mission, in everything. Defying heaven was worth this. Dean kisses him quickly out of nowhere, all rush of emotions, endorphins; an action that must have omitted conscious thinking.

Defying Heaven was worth this especially.

"Oh my God, I'm so sor-" Dean tries to blurt out, but Castiel pulls him in and kisses him. Really kisses him. He dreamed of this for months, ever since he fell and gathered the remains of his wings. Ever since he felt all those petty little things like love – love for the things that are lesser than the whole of creation. Things like one man with such sad eyes, mostly.

Dean breaks the kiss and stares at him startled like a wolf that just heard the moon howl back to it. His eyes are far from sad and what an unimaginable sight it is. They illuminate the whole dimmed room. The "vacancy" sign seems pale in comparison. Castiel shamelessly stares. And waits, unafraid because he's always been brave. Because he always believes he's doing the right thing.

Let it be the right thing.

"Our camp," he goes flatly like an echo of his own words but the entirety of his face tells Castiel what the fuck did you just do? The rest of Dean decides whatever it was, he liked it.

Or at least this is what urgent kissing back seems to indicate.

It was the right thing.

Castiel doesn't waste time. Enough has been wasted already. He too is drunk on emotion, drunk on Dean. This is what hope does to people. Beautiful things. He touches him like he used to touch the Bible: with awe and gentle reverence. His hands keep swimming until they find the shore of Dean's skin. He needs more of that, now. He takes. He kisses him again, mouth scorching with need. He desperately wants. Not because he's human. But because it's Dean. The sight of his joy makes him warmer than his grace. He stops kissing only to just look at him again, and he takes it all in, the fresh grass of his eyes the sand of his freckles. He's Eden. He's Arcadia. He's the wings that he's lost. He's everything.

"God, let me have this," Dean murmurs into Castiel's mouth. Like he's afraid it all is going to shatter. Not on Castiel's watch. "I need this."

"God or no God, you have me," Castiel smiles. "You'll always have me. Ubi tu, ibi ego."

"Can you promise that?"

"Of course," he assures, believing firmly in every syllable. "There's nothing I want to do more than to watch you fix the world."

"You can watch that later," Dean smiles slyly, tugging Castiel towards the motel bed. It seems so far. Too far. Every moment is a million years.

But tonight they have time.

In confines of each other's bodies they find something long lost: they find life. There is never enough touch, enough kisses. With every single move, dead joints come back to the world of the living, Croatoan and fear for once forgotten. With every single thrust, breathes sing new gospels, songs of half-calm seas. Words fall and sink somewhere deep, there's not much of them but they all echo in the room that is not there anymore. There's just them for this one goddamn time. The world is an abstract concept. Castiel watches Dean come undone in his warm, loving hands; he hears him swim to him with a rite of his name on his sacrilegiously beautiful lips.

Cas, Cas, Cas.

It's ambrosia. And he's not just drunk. No, he's wasted.

He never wants to get sober.

 **II.**

Sam says yes in Detroit.

Something dead walks by Castiel's side ever since. Something that doesn't know how to rot, but desperately wants to.

Just not to feel it reek, he never wants to get sober.

 **III.**

His whole body is always so stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in and never found the opportunity or reason to leave. It even invaded his voice. It's something broken and scorched beyond recognition, worse than when he screamed in Hell for thirty years. Here, on Earth, dying alongside his brother – in parts, in days, in pieces – was enough. When was Dean's last breath, Castiel doesn't know. He wasn't exactly watching. There were louder gongs to bang at the time and one wilting exhale was so easy to miss. And perhaps in repercussion for this, Dean's drowned-man's unseeing eyes stare at him accusingly. Castiel is glad the cabin is so dark. Dean's eyes are even darker than that, tinted with death. There is nothing he can do, he has to look at them every day because he promised to stay. Because he has nowhere to go, other than to die. Soon, he'll cross that off his bucket list. It will be relieving. Being with his fearless leader evokes guilt – this is what he helped him become: a siren that lures Chitaqua to death. His own hands are dirty with blood and needles, by his careless fin du sieclist decadence that Dean tried to stop but couldn't, he pushed him down one stair at a time. Apparently with all the booze and drugs he became too bright a star and it burned Dean out while he tried to be too close.

But all in all, weren't it for Dean and his dead eyes, weren't it for Dean and his ruthless orders, he wouldn't have drank. He wouldn't have fucked more than half the camp to make them feel human and loved again, while day by day, Dean carved them into tools.

But he couldn't stand the sight, so he did. He was, and is, repelled. It's a nice thing they're going to die, actually.

"We're gonna do it," he states matter of-factly in lieu of greeting. Or a goodbye, whatever this is. They're leaving soon and they're not even taking the same jeep. He's riding with the Ghost of Past fucking Christmas, which only adds to his dull, but never receding weltschmertz. Dean goes with fuck knows who. "We're gonna lead the camp to death," he adds, voice devoid of emotion. It's already done: you can't change a dead man's mind. Still, he fruitlessly tries to make Dean understand that this isn't just a mission to kill the Devil. In how Dean wants to play this out, this is a spectacular and petty, selfish suicide – because this isn't Lucifer Dean is going to kill, no. It's his brother. Why does Chitaqua have to repent for that, Castiel just doesn't get. This is a cult-ish mass suicide. He didn't flip the finger to Heaven for this. He valued humanity for its ability and will to fight back, and yet he's left with a flock of dodo birds that jump into extinction just because bird alpha does (he, bird beta, does too).

Dean flashes him a small, but livid glare. He seems irritated. Maybe because Castiel keeps playing this one song of "Dean, this is reckless/insouciant/irresponsible/thoughtless et all ceteras" like a broken record. Maybe because there are still so many long hours to spend with him of all people before he really dies for the last fucking time and he simply can't wait to be the king in the land of dead.

"I'm sorry," Dean spits flatly and tries to shrug, but fails, dead bones too stiff to really follow through with a human motion.

Castiel spits at him. Really spits at him.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not," Dean echoes tiredly. "Is this what you wanted to hear?"

Castiel has been afraid of this day for months and all he wanted, was for it not to come. He was afraid. Since he lost his second wings of hope. Since he discovered that things like love are small and when they wilt, they leave terror in their wake because a sad-eyed mother carved out of a man had lost his brother in Detroit, his child. And when Dean died beside him, his walking corpse spread the illness of fear into the humid air.

And this Castiel couldn't love, not for long.

Now what is left is the staring; a tragedy of both the wolf and the moon because they're too far away to destroy each other into cinders to find peace.

"It's not your camp, anyway," Dean tells him, while his face does all it can and more to convey a hefty what the fuck is your problem? "But I still need you to stay in line and do what has to be done, capiche?" he asks, voice urgent for the first time since fuck knows when. He pulls him in by his shirt and Castiel lets himself easily fall into his orbit. Dean kisses him, all fear and desperation. Castiel lets him have it.

There are no better things to do.

They can waste some time. Enough has been wasted on nothing, so why bother now? They're both guilty, in the end. He's too sober for this, he thinks. Too sober for Dean. This is what lack of hope does to people, it dehumanizes them and makes them into nasty things. Part pissed, part bored, he touches him like he touches the Bible: with violent disrespect and disgust. It's all a high tide of push and pull, of hands drowning, of rotten air escaping in between empty kisses. He doesn't care. Not because he's at his lowest, but because it's Dean. His death makes him feel colder than how Dean's gone cold. He stops kissing to look what's left of him and he takes it all with pain: the seaweed of his eyes, the lifeless stone of his face. He's Hades. He's Sheol. He's broken bones. He's nothing.

"Come with me," Dean begs quietly. "Let's just die."

"Why not, Cesar," Castiel laughs dryly. "Coming towards death, I salute you still."

"Are you sure?" he asks and it's so fucking hilarious he has the audacity to ask for his consent now. He wishes Dean gave Chitaqua the same choice. But no, after Sam, he always was some kind of twisted priority.

"Of course," he assures. Equally twisted, Dean is still his. "That's still better than watching you destroy what's left of our world."

"Well, watch me," Dean cackles, something dreadful coming out of his throat instead of laughter. He kisses Castiel once more, pulls away, humming.

Tonight they don't have time. Or they don't want to. Dean's body is a book Castiel is bored with. There's been enough touch, enough kisses. Too many. He seeks something else than that. Soon, he'll find death, a death better than this one on two legs before him.

Dean turns around to leave, all stiff and absent again, his entire being already functioning on a different plane. And Castiel thinks, good. Finally. He'll get to stay alone in the cabin, just him and nothing else. He waits for Dean to say something, anything. Whatever it will be, it's gonna sound shallow and meaningless. Because it is. Everything is abstract and fucked up. Unfair, mostly, because Chitaqua doesn't know it's going to be nothing more than cats pinned to Persian bucklers. Demons are no Egyptians – they're going to shoot. Chitaqua seeks life, but it's going to die. Thanks to both of them.

He watches Dean come out of the cabin and punches the wall with his hopeless, idle hand. Fuck things.

"See you there, Cas," he hears Dean throw in his general direction. Somehow he knows Dean means the afterlife.

He doesn't like that promise. He's not sure if he could stand this.

That's probably the worst thing that came out of Dean's goddamn mouth tonight.


End file.
